Let’s not Forget the Unsung Martyrs

Some personalities need very less introduction, as we start to talk about Tulsi Gabbard, the U.S. House of Representatives for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District. She’s even beyond inspiration. It won’t be wrong to describe her as a great luminary that personifies empowerment, sacrifice, willpower and selfless service.

The Amazing Tulsi Gabbard is aptly described as “A deep storehouse of personal strength and leadership qualities.”

Recently, on the event of “Bloody Sunday”, Tulsi released a statement that reminds of the great sacrifice made by African Americans 50 years back. They suffered a great degree of political injustice and civil rights inequality. They were not allowed to exercise their voting rights. In an attempt to answer this, they launched a mass movement marked by a huge public march from Selma to Montgomery to raise the attention of the then ruling authority.

This is an important date in the American calendar as this commemorates the ghastly behavior of erstwhile ruling authority shown to huge number of silent protestors who were marching on the Edmund Pettus Bridge demanding the voting rights.

Most of them were attacked by the county policemen with billy clubs, and tear gas was also released to suppress them. This evoked a national outcry and attracted international attention. Many prominent leaders were attacked by the county policemen ruthlessly and the Whites even murdered some of the top flag bearers. The series of shameful events just created a black spot in the history of American politics. Finally the voting bill was passed by the President in 1965.

Tulsi rightly points out that even we have progressed a lot in all areas, still we lack the “aloha” spirit. We are missing the spirit of compassion, love, care and respectfulness; still we witness bigotry and discrimination in our lives, society and nation as a whole. Still the national public are bugged by rising issues like terrorism, unfair economics, red-tapism and biased bureaucracy.

Even if 50 years have passed and we have achieved great economic and political milestones, our consciousness hasn’t changed much. We still see a lot of areas to work upon like – equal rights for all and racial injustice.

Tulsi inspires us to respect and appreciate the sacrifice made by the African Americans and this further reminds us not to repeat similar horrifying actions against anyone in the society.